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If this really is The Last Story for Sakaguchi he departed on good-terms with me.  Mistwalker's latest JRPG is a departure from their earlier works -- Lost Odyssey, most notably -- and stands as a "step in the right direction" for eastern developed role-playing titles.  Sadly, Nintendo's console doesn't seem to have the power to keep it from falling victim to technical issues, hurting the experience in the long run.

Title: The Last Story
Developer: Mistwalker / AQ Interactive
Publisher: Xseed (North America)
Release Date: August 14, 2012 (North America)

Following a band of mercenaries on their quest for a paying job, The Last Story inter-weaves the emotions, and relationships, of its characters and does so effectively, while never letting memorable events feel like a distant past.  Zael & friends stumble upon some fairly standard-fare fantasy tropes, all the while remaining the most interesting part themselves. This isn't as much a game about epic battles or confusing Japanese naming-conventions  -- although the game is guilty of having them -- but rather about comradery and how one effects the lives of another. The narrative moves along nicely, never dragging the player along needlessly.  It's story arcs memorable and helpful toward developing the characters within.

Visually, The Last Story is a beautiful game. So much in fact, it brings the Wii hardware to its knees when trying to push those beautiful polygons -- I will get to that soon enough. I know that doesn't say much these days, being a Wii title and all, but I felt it should be noted.  More importantly, the soundtrack is wonderfully melodic, memorable, and everything we've come to expect from Nobuo Uematsu -- the fabled Final Fantasy composer.  A majority of the voice acting is great, charmingly English -- or is that British?? -- and is a saving grace from the typical "squeaky" voices we hear often in JRPGs.

The Last Story's combat is mainly real-time action, leaving the player hack & slashing with a single character while issuing orders to the remainder of the party through a paused strategy menu. Strangely enough, theres a cover system that encourages the use of a slash attack inflicting bonus damage to enemies.  This same cover system also benefits the use of crossbows, which thankfully never tips the gameplay into shooter territory. Elemental-weakness strategies are not as involving as I'd hoped, but the attack chain-bonus -- a mechanic where chaining attacks from party member to party member incrementally raises attack damage -- makes up for the lack of "spice" in combat.

Sadly, The Last Story falls victim to horrifying frame-rate issues which cast a dark shadow over much of this experience. As the frame-rate began its decent into frustrating depths I was left fumbling with controls at slide-show speeds.  As if the end game boss battles are not hard enough; add in single-digit frame-rate numbers and they become damn-near unbeatable.

Indeed, there is a multiplayer component allowing PvP and/or co-op "horde-grinding", yet I was not lucky enough to find any connections after 20 minutes of attempts.  I wouldn't expect to be putting The Last Story's online components to good-use very often.

Issues aside, I liked much of what The Last Story has going for it.  Its lack of quest menus and arrows, while frustrating at first, really drove exploration and interaction when comfort set in.  This combat system is fun enough to drive treading through New game+ territory, if that's your thing too.  It's a JRPG that never really felt like one at all, breaking the mold of expectations in the genre in small yet effective ways.

The Last Story is technically a mess, yet I enjoyed a majority of the 25+ hours I spent playing.  The combat was engaging and helped bridge the gap between plot-points I found myself emotionally invested in. I wouldn't recommend every long-time Sakaguchi fan to take a hit on The Last Story, unfortunately. While I had fun with it, I was patient and determined; somewhat of a requirement to look passed the frustration caused by these frame-rate issues .

Score: 60%
(60-69%: Good – You’ll find some serious or distracting issues.)

Comments

  • Avatar
    2-D
    11 years, 6 months ago

    Great review. Decided to hold off on this game based on some reviews.

  • Avatar
    davethezombie
    11 years, 6 months ago

    Pretty much had the same sentiments toward the game. A ton of technical problems including graphical glitches, getting locked into offense animation when I bump into an enemy when I actually want to block, and those unnecessary segments where the game forces you to go into POV mode and makes you look at a point of interest. That said, I was glad how easy it was to level up. For whatever reason, it made the gameplay easier to deal with and cut down a lot of hours of grinding. It's not unplayable, it just could've been a whole lot better. It's a shame too since this was a XSeed title that people prayed to come to the states and seeing it flop on its own face feels like stab in the back.

  • Avatar
    nikki n fargus 4ever
    11 years, 6 months ago

    Man, the more scores for this game I see the more I worry. I picked up the game about a week ago and won't have the chance to really sink my teeth into it until next weekend but the more I read and hear about it the more hesitant I become. Sad that it seems that biggest faults are the technical problems...surefire way to any game =(

    P.S Well written review as well. Short and sweet, my ideal review with the less time I find myself with these days.

  • Avatar
    Locked
    11 years, 6 months ago

    Good review Jeff, I tried to watch as much of this game as I could and the battle system still leaves me scratching my head. As mentioned the technical problems that plague the game seem to ruin the immersion, can't have a riveting experience with graphical issues and camera issues.

    All in all, seemed to be a feed friendly game (to watch) but not sure I would want to put much time into playing it now. But maybe one day~~

    Keep up the good work Jeff. :D

  • Avatar
    jon2435
    11 years, 6 months ago

    The Last Story is really bad and I hate that it is, because I am a fan Sakaguchi's work. I have never felt forced to change a character's clothing/armor color until this game, because half of the characters had black color palettes. It's great to be able to change colors and thankfully it's a option. The voice over work is good, but a mini I'll cover in just a bit ruins it. The number of weapon designs is nice, but with combat automated by default it's hard get excited over them. Armor starts out like clothing, but with upgrades it looks more like armor. So even with few armor types, there is still many different looks. However, the textures are very muddy on armor. The narration is pointless and breaks the experience. Do I need to be told the cove is bathed with warm sunlight? I don't, because I can see the sunlight and from the greenery I can tell it's warm. The aiming mini game just put into The Last Story is just strange. The whole game pauses and waits for you to look at something, be it a women or a guy 4 inches from your face. This also just ruins tense moments. Where you are in the world is not clear in story, politically, or even physically. There is little reason to care about what's happening. I enjoy the Wii games I have, but The Last Story is to much for it.

    Even if your a fan of Sakaguchi or JRPGs in general skip The Last Story. Unless you feel that you have to play it, or can rent it.

  • Avatar
    Serocco
    11 years, 6 months ago

    For anyone that played it, would you recommend this game to anyone else, taking into account the technical issues?